Gauge degrees of freedom, external charges, and quark confinement criterion in the A/sub 0/ = 0 canonical formalism

Journal Article · Sat Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 1978 · Phys. Rev., D; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.18.453· OSTI ID:6824541

Gervais, J L; Sakita, B

The A/sub 0/ = 0 canonical formalism is shown to be completely consistent even though Gauss's law is not verified as a field equation. This is so because the Hilbert space of states must also involve states coupled with external static charge distributions. Indeed these cannot be handled by adding the standard A/sub ..mu../j/sup ext//sub ..mu../ term because it vanishes identically in the A/sub 0/ = 0 gauge for static charges. The corresponding charge densities are instead the eigenvalues of the operator of infinitesimal time-independent gauge transformations which commute with the Hamiltonian. The implications of this viewpoint are discussed in connection with Gribov's phenomenon, the theta vacuum, perturbation theory, and quark confinement. The constant of motion due to gauge invariance in gauge theories plays the same role as the constant of motion due to translational invariance in soliton quantization.

• Research Organization: Laboratoire de Physique Theorique de l'Ecole Normale Superieure, 24 rue Lhomond, Paris 75231 France
• OSTI ID: 6824541
• Journal Information: Phys. Rev., D; (United States), Vol. 18:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BAG MODEL
GAUGE INVARIANCE
YANG-MILLS THEORY
CANONICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
CHARGE DISTRIBUTION
HAMILTONIANS
HELICITY
HILBERT SPACE
LAGRANGIAN FUNCTION
PERTURBATION THEORY
SOLITONS
VACUUM STATES
BANACH SPACE
COMPOSITE MODELS
EXTENDED PARTICLE MODEL
FUNCTIONS
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS
MATHEMATICAL SPACE
PARTICLE MODELS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
QUANTUM OPERATORS
QUARK MODEL
QUASI PARTICLES
SPACE
645201* - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical- General & Scattering Theory
645400 - High Energy Physics- Field Theory